Mojang raises over $450k for charity

Over the weekend of the 17th to the 19th December, 2012, the company responsible for Minecraft, Scrolls and the publishing of Cobalt raised almost half a million dollars for four different charities.

Holding a game jam – an event where a game is to be created within a set time-limit, usually a 48-hour period over a weekend. It’s an incredibly intense and physically demanding challenge, and Mojang took to it with gusto, teaming up with Oxeye (developers of Cobalt) to deliver three games over the weekend – and deliver they did.

The gaming community also came together and donated $458,214.95 USD in total, which is an incredible achievement and something to be celebrated whether you’re a Minecraft superfan or a Partypoker player. It’s also worth celebrating if you’re one of the four charities receiving an average of over a hundred thousand dollars as a result.

Not that it didn’t look like fun, however – they livestreamed the whole thing and engaged in random activities from bacon-slapping fights to arm wrestling, to entertain those who tuned in to watch the games being made. The games themselves seem competent and imprethe community around videogamssive for around a weekend’s worth of work, and watching staff member BomuBoi craft pixel-art was a particular highlight.

Game jams are becoming all the more popular as time goes on, and it’s fascinating to see so many people coming together to design small games and offer up an insight into their design process and how they cope with the time constraint while attempting to craft a playable, enjoyable game.

It’s also a big boost to the gaming industry’s reputation – all too often games are labelled as evil, and seeing the gaming community give back like this really helps to prove all the naysayers wrong. We can’t wait until the next one. Similar promo should be shown on the site poker promo hub.